15 October 2017

3rd Thank’s Day, Tower of Balyntine, Talingarde: No rest for the wicked. On the eve of the visiting troupe of actors to the tower, the Nessian Knot decided next to assassinate Tassitus. Pretending to replace the guards outside the Lord Commander’s chambers the Knot scaled the wall down to Tassitus’s chambers. In his rooms they appropriated his spell book as well as a vial of concentrated tincture of wolfsbane before finding a strange ice golem in his laboratory and a cauldron of brewing. The Nessian Knot laid ambush, Ulmaticron stealing Tassitus’s voice as soon as he entered his room with the might of the Woodstick and Brand causing the mage to flee. As he turned to bespell the Nessian Knot, Brand grappled the mage, crippling his spell casting ability while Ulmaticron and the Woodstick stabbed the magister to death. In his dying moments, Tassitus sacrificed himself with a fireball spell, injuring all in the room. The Woodstick then roused the ice golem and as it chased the rogue to the window, Brand threw Tassitus burnt corpse at it. The Nessian Knot made good their escape reassuming their guise as guards. It took the Lord Commander and the lives of eight guards to disable the ice golem. The tower assumed that the magister had been slain by his crystalline discovery.

Over the next few days, the Nessian Knot in various guises, bought all the arsenic in the area.

4th Mitra’s Day, Tower of Balyntine, Talingarde: Disguised as servers, the Nessian Knot was able to discretely add both the wolfsbane and arsenic to Mama’s stew, killing nearly a third of the guardsmen and incapacitating another third. The Tower was now severely weakened, down to a third of its strength, three of its four captains dead, its magister dead, and its chaplain vanished. Pretending to be the relief for the Lord Commander’s guard, the Nessian Knot infiltrated the Lord Commander’s chambers. They ambushed him most vilely in his sleep, he made good account with his blade before falling to the Knot. They secreted his body in the ice golem’s table in Tassitus’s laboratory.

The Nessian Knot then disabled the Seal of Balyntine, a great stone that could have sealed the donjon and trapped any invaders inside. They then went to the guard tower, dispatching the four guards, disabling the burning sand, and disabling the portcullis and drawbridge. Next they slew the four guardsmen who crewed the ballista before releasing the flare that would bring Sakkarot Fireax and his horde. Thousands of bug bears poured into the Tower and Balyntine and put Talingarde’s northern fortress to the torch. As the bug bear army grew, the townsfolk fled and more humanoids came to join the great march South. Both Adrastus Thorn and Asmodeus are pleased...